When pension

accrued.

nated in the service since the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and sixty-one, or in consequence of wounds or injuries received or disease contracted since that date, shall commence from the death or discharge of the person on whose account the claim has been or is hereafter granted, or from the termination of the right of party having prior title to such pension; provided the application for such pension has been or is hereafter filed with the Commissioner of Pensions within five years after the right thereto has accrued; otherwise the pension shall commence from the date of filing the last evidence necessary to establish the same. But the limitation herein prescribed shall not apply to claims by or in behalf of insane persons and children under sixteen years.

SEC. 4710. In construing the preceding section, the right of persons deemed to have entitled to pensions shall be recognized as accruing at the date therein stated for the commencement of such pension, and the right of a dependent father or dependent brother to pension shall not in any case be held to have accrued prior to the sixth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-six; and the right of all other classes of claimants, if applying on account of the death of a person who was regularly mustered into the service, or regularly employed in the Navy or upon the gun-boats or war-vessels of the United States, shall not be held to have accrued prior to the fourteenth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-two; if applying on account of a chaplain of the Army, their right shall not be held to have accrued prior to the ninth day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty-four; if applying on account of an enlisted soldier who was not mustered, or a non-enlisted man in temporary service, their right shall not be held to have accrued prior to the fourth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-four; if applying on account of an acting assistant or contract surgeon, their right shall not be held to have accrued prior to the third day of March, eighteen hundred and sixtyfive; if applying on account of persons enlisted as teamsters, wagoners, artificers, hospital-stewards, or farriers, their right shall not be held to have accrued prior to the sixth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-six; and the right of all classes of claimants applying on account of a provost-marshal, deputy provost-marshal, or enrolling-officer, shall not be held to have accrued prior to the twenty-fifth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-six. But the right of a widow or dependent mother who married prior, and did not apply till subsequent to the twenty-seventh day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, shall not be held to have accrued prior to that date.

Arrears of pensions.

SEC. 4711. It shall be the duty of the Commissioner of Pensions, upon any application by letter or otherwise by or on behalf of any pensioner entitled to arrears of pension under section forty-seven hundred and nine, or if any such pensioner has died, upon a similar application by or on behalf of any person entitled to receive the accrued pension due such pensioner at his death, to pay or cause to be paid to such pensioner, or other person, all such arrears of pension as the pensioner may be entitled to, or, if dead, would have been entitled to under the provisions of that section had he survived; and no claim-agent or other person shall be entitled to receive any compensation for services in making application for arrears of pension.

Provisions of SEC. 4712. The provisions of this Title in respect to the rates of penpension laws ex- sion to persons whose right accrued since the fourth day of March, eighttended, &c. een hundred and sixty-one, are extended to pensioners whose right to pension accrued under general acts passed since the war of the Revolution and prior to the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred and sixtyone, to take effect from and after the twenty-fifth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-six; and the widows of revolutionary soldiers and sailors receiving a less sum shall be paid at the rate of eight dollars per month from and after the twenty-seventh day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight.

Commencement

SEC. 4713. In all cases in which the cause of disability or death origi of pensions for nated in the service prior to the fourth day of March, eighteen hundred prior wars.

and sixty-one, and an application for pension shall not have been filed within three years from the discharge or death of the person on whose account the claim is made, or within three years of the termination of a pension previously granted on account of the service and death of the same person, the pension shall commence from the date of filing by the party prosecuting the claim the last paper requisite to establish the

same. But no claim allowed prior to the sixth day of June, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, shall be affected by anything herein contained. SEC. 4714. Declarations of pension claimants shall be made before a court of record, or before some officer thereof having custody of its seal, said officer hereby being fully authorized and empowered to administer and certify any oath or affirmation relating to any pension or application therefor: Provided, That the Commissioner of Pensions may designate, in localities more than twenty-five miles distant from any place at which such court is holden, persons duly qualified to administer oaths, before whom declarations may be made and testimony taken, and may accept declarations of claimants residing in foreign countries, made before a United States minister or consul, or before some officer of the country duly authorized to administer oaths for general purposes, and whose official character and signature shall be duly authenticated by the certificate of a United States minister or consul; declarations in claims of Indians made before a United States agent; and declarations in claims under the provisions of this Title relating to pensions for services in the war of eighteen hundred and twelve, made before an officer duly authorized to administer oaths for general purposes, when the applicants, by reason of infirmity of age, are unable to travel: Provided, That any declaration made before an officer duly authorized to administer oaths for general purposes shall be accepted to exempt a claim from the limitation as to date of filing prescribed in section forty-seven hundred and nine.

Declaration of claimants.

Only one pen

SEC. 4715. Nothing in this Title shall be so construed as to allow more than one pension at the same time to the same person, or to persons sion at a time. entitled jointly; but any pensioner who shall so elect may surrender his certificate, and receive, in lieu thereof, a certificate for any other pension to which he would have been entitled had not the surrendered certificate been issued. But all payments previously made for any period covered by the new certificate shall be deducted from the amount allowed by such certificate.

SEC. 4716. No money on account of pension shall be paid to any per- Loyalty, son, or to the widow, children, or heirs of any deceased person, who in any manner voluntarily engaged in, or aided or abetted, the late rebellion against the authority of the United States.

Claims to be

SEC. 4717. No claim for pension not prosecuted to successful issue within five years from the date of filing the same shall be admitted prosecuted withwithout record-evidence from the War or Navy Department of the in- in what time. jury or the disease which resulted in the disability or death of the person on whose account the claim is made: Provided, That in any case in which the limitation prescribed by this section bars the further prosecution of the claim, the claimant may present, through the PensionOffice, to the Adjutant-General of the Army, or the Surgeon-General of the Navy, evidence that the disease or injury which resulted in the disability or death of the person on whose account the claim is made, originated in the service and in the line of duty; and if such evidence is deemed satisfactory by the officer to whom it may he submitted, he shall cause a record of the fact so proved to be made, and a copy of the same to be transmitted to the Commissioner of Pensions, and the bar to the prosecution of the claim shall thereby be removed.

SEC. 4718. If any pensioner has died or shall hereafter die; or if any person entitled to a pension, having an application therefor pending, has died or shall hereafter die, his widow, or if there is no widow, the child or children of such person under the age of sixteen years, shall be entitled to receive the accrued pension to the date of the death of such person. Such accrued pension shall not be considered as a part of the assets of the estate of deceased, nor liable to be applied to the payment of the debts of said estate in any case whatever, but shall inure to the sole and exclusive benefit of the widow or children; and if no widow or child survive, no payment whatsoever of the accrued pension shall be made or allowed, except so much as may be necessary to re-imburse the person who bore the expenses of the last sickness and burial of the decedent, in cases where he did not leave sufficient assets to meet such expenses.

Accrued pen

sions.

sions.

SEC. 4719. The failure of any pensioner to claim his pension for three Unclaimed penyears after the same shall have become due shall be deemed presumptive evidence that such pension has legally terminated by reason of the pensioner's death, remarriage, recovery from the disability, or otherwise, and the pensioner's name shall be stricken from the list of pen

Pensions under

sioners, subject to the right of restoration to the same on a new application by the pensioner, or, if the pensioner is dead, by the widow or minor children entitled to receive the accrued pension, accompanied by evidence satisfactorily accounting for the failure to claim such pension, and by medical evidence in cases of invalids who were not exempt from biennial examinations as to the continuance of the disability.

SEC. 4720. When the rate, commencement, and duration of a pension special acts of allowed by special act are fixed by such act, they shall not be subject Congress. to be varied by the provisions and limitations of the general pensionlaws, but when not thus fixed the rate and continuance of the pension shall be subject to variation in accordance with the general laws, and its commencement shall date from the passage of the special act, and the Commissioner of Pensions shall, upon satisfactory evidence that fraud was perpetrated in obtaining such special act, suspend payment thereupon until the propriety of repealing the same can be considered by Congress.

Colored sol

"slaves."

66

[Sec. 4721 relates to Indian claims, and 4722 to Missouri State militia.] SEC. 4723. All colored persons who enlisted in the Army during the diers enrolled as war of the rebellion, and who are now prohibited from receiving bounty and pension on account of being borne on the rolls of their regiments as slaves," ," shall be placed on the same footing, as to bounty and pension, as though they had not been slaves at the date of their enlistment. Both pension SEC. 4724. No person in the Army, Navy, or Marine Corps shall draw and pay not al- both a pension as an invalid, and the pay of his rank or station in the lowed, unless, &c. service, unless the disability for which the pension was granted be such as to occasion his employment in a lower grade, or in the civil branch of the service.

June 3, 1858.

Half-pay to SEC. 4725. All those surviving widows and minor children who have widows, &c., un- been allowed five years' half-pay, under the provisions of any general der laws prior to laws passed prior to the third day of June, eighteen hundred and fiftyeight, are granted a continuance of such half-pay, to commence from the date of the last payment under the respective acts of Congress granting the same, and on the terms and limitations provided in the following section.

To widow for life, and to children under six teen, &c.

SEC. 4726. Such half-pay is granted to such widows during life, and, where there is no widow, to the children, while under the age of sixteen years; but in case of the remarriage or death of any such widow, the half-pay shall go to the children of the decedent on account of whose services it is claimed, while such children are under sixteen years of age, and no longer.

Half-monthly SEC. 4727. The half-pay of such widows and children shall be half the pay not to exceed monthly pay of the officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians, and that of lieuten privates of the infantry of the Regular Army, and no more, and no ant-colonel. greater sum shall be allowed to any such widow or minor children than the half-pay of a lieutenant-colonel. But the two preceding sections shall not be construed to apply to or embrace the case of any person receiving a pension for life on the third day of June, eighteen hundred and fifty-eight; and, wherever half-pay has been granted by any special act of Congress, and renewed or continued under the provisions of those sections, the same shall continue from the date above named: Provided, That pensions under this and the two preceding sections, shall be varied in accordance with the provisions of section four thousand seven hundred and twelve of this Title.

Navy pensions.

SEC. 4728. If any officer, warrant or petty officer, seaman, engineer, first, second, or third assistant engineer, fireman or coal-heaver of the Navy or any marine has been disabled prior to the fourth day of March eighteen hundred and sixty-one by reason of any injury received or disease contracted in the service and line of duty, he shall be entitled to receive during the continuance of his disability a pension proportionate to the degree of his disability not exceeding half the monthly pay of his rank as it existed in January eighteen hundred and thirty-five. But the pension of a chief-engineer shall be the same as that of a lieutenant of the Navy; the pension of a first assistant engineer the same as that of a lieutenant of marines; the pension of a second or third assistant engineer the same as that of a forward officer; the pension of a fireman or coal-heaver the same as that of a seaman; but an engineer, fireman or coal-heaver shall not be entitled to any pension by reason of a disability incurred prior to the thirty-first day of August eighteen hundred and forty-two.

children.

SEC. 4729. If any person referred to in the preceding section has died Naval pensions in the service, of injury received or disease contracted under the condi- to widows and tions therein stated, his widow shall be entitled to receive half the monthly pay to which the deceased was entitled at the date of his death; and in case of her death or marriage, the child or children under sixteen years of age shall be entitled to the pension. But the rate of pension herein allowed shall be governed by the pay of the Navy as it existed in January, eighteen hundred and thirty-five; and the pension of the widow of a chief engineer shall be the same as that of a widow of a lieutenant in the Navy; the pension of the widow of a first assistant engineer shall be the same as that of the widow of a lieutenant of marines; the pension of the widow of a second or third assistant engineer the same as that of the widow of a forward officer; the pension of the widow of a fireman or coal-heaver shall be the same as that of the widow of a seaman. But the rate of pension prescribed by this and the preceding section shall be varied from and after the twenty-fifth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, in accordance with the provisions of section four thousand seven hundred and twelve of this Title; and the widow of an engineer, fireman, or coal-heaver shall not be entitled to any pension by reason of the death of her husband if his death was prior to the thirty-first day of August, eighteen hundred and forty-two.

war.

SEC. 4730. Any officer, non-commissioned officer, musician or private, Pensions to solwhether of the Regular Army or volunteers disabled by reason of injury diers of Mexican received or disease contracted while in the line of duty in actual service in the war with Mexico, or in going to or returning from the same, who received an honorable discharge, shall be entitled to a pension proportionate to his disability, not exceeding for total disability half the pay of his rank at the date at which he received the wound or contracted the disease which resulted in such disability. But no pension shall exceed half the pay of a lieutenant-colonel.

ers.

SEC. 4731. If any officer or other person referred to in the preceding Widows and section has died or shall hereafter die by reason of any injury received children of Mexi or disease contracted under the circumstances therein set forth, his can war pensionwidow shall be entitled to receive the same pension as the husband would have been entitled to had he been totally disabled; and in case of her death or remarriage, the child or children of such officer or other person referred to in the preceding section, while under the age of sixteen years, shall be entitled to receive the pension. But the rate of pension prescribed by this and the preceding section shall be varied after the twenty-fifth day of July, eighteen hundred and sixty-six, in accordance with the provisions of section four thousand seven hundred and twelve of this Title.

sioners of war of

1812 and Indian wars.

SEC. 4732. The widows and children under sixteen years of age of the Widows and officers, non-commissioned officers, musicians and privates of the regchildren of penulars, militia, and volunteers of the war of one thousand eight hundred and twelve and the various Indian wars since one thousand seven hundred and ninety who remained at the date of their death in the military service of the United States, or who received an honorable discharge and have died or shall hereafter die of injury received or disease contracted in the service and in the line of duty shall be entitled to receive half the monthly pay to which the deceased was entitled at the time he received the injury or contracted the disease which resulted in his death. But no half-pay pension shall exceed the half-pay of a lieutenant-colonel and such half-pay pension shall be varied after the twentyfifth day of July one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six in accordance with the provisions of section four thousand seven hundred and twelve of this Title.

SEC. 4733. All pensioners whose names are now on the pension-roll Continuance of or who are entitled to restoration to the roll under any act of Congress, pensions.

shall be entitled to the continuance of such pensions under the provis

ions and limitations of this Title, and to such further increase of pension

as is herein provided.

SEC. 4734. The provisions of law which allow the withholding of the Pensions not to compensation of any person who is in arrears shall not be construed to be withheld. authorize the pension of any pensioner of the United States to be withheld.

SEC. 4735. No pension shall be granted to a widow for the same time that her husband received one.

Time for which

a widow shall not receive a pension.

Pensions to certain soldiers and sailors of the war of 1812.

Pensions to be at what rate, &c.

Pensions to sur

SEC. 4736. The Secretary of the Interior is directed to place on the pension roll the names of the surviving officers and enlisted and drafted men, including militia and volunteers, of the military and naval service of the United States, who served sixty days in the war with Great Britain of eighteen hundred and twelve, and were honorably discharged, and such other officers and soldiers as may have been personally named in any resolution of Congress for any specific service in that war, although their term of service may have been less than sixty days, subject, however, to the provisions of section forty-seven hundred and sixteen.

SEC. 4737. Pensions, under the preceding section, shall be at the rate of eight dollars per month, and shall be paid to the persons entitled thereto for the term of their lives, from and after the fourteenth day of February, eighteen hundred and seventy-one. But that section shall not apply to any person who is receiving a pension at the rate of eight dollars or more per month; nor to any person who is receiving a pension less than eight dollars per month, except for the difference between the pension now received and eight dollars per month.

SEC. 4738. The surviving widows of such persons as are embraced viving widows of within the provisions of the two preceding sections, shall be allowed, on officers, &c., of war of 1812. the conditions and limitations therein expressed, the same pension that such persons themselves would have been entitled to receive thereunder if living on the fourteenth day of February, eighteen hundred and seventy-one: Provided, however, Such widows were married to the husbands, on account of whose services the pension is claimed, prior to the treaty of peace which terminated the war of eighteen hundred and twelve, and have not remarried.

stricken from pension-rolls.

Proof required; SEC. 4739. Before the name of any person is placed upon the pensionnames may be roll under the three preceding sections, proof shall be made, under such regulations as the Secretary of the Interior may prescribe, that the applicant is entitled to a pension under the provisions of the sections herein cited; and the Secretary of the Interior shall cause to be stricken from the pension-roll the name of any person whenever it appears, by proof satisfactory, that such name was put upon such roll through false or fraudulent representations.

&c.

Loss of certifi

SEC. 4740. The loss of a certificate of discharge shall not deprive an cate of discharge, applicant of the benefits of sections forty-seven hundred and thirty-six, forty-seven hundred and thirty-seven, and forty-seven hundred and thirty-eight, but other proof of services performed and of an honorable discharge, if deemed satisfactory, shall be sufficient.

Pensions to offi

of revenue-cut

ters.

SEC. 4741. The officers and seamen of the revenue-cutters of the United cers and seamen States, who have been or may be wounded or disabled in the discharge of their duty while co-operating with the Navy by order of the President, shall be entitled to be placed on the Navy pension-list, at the same rate of pension and under the same regulations and restrictions as are provided by law for the officers and seamen of the Navy.

[Secs. 4742 and 4743 relate to revolutionary pensions, and 4744 to detail of clerk to investigate pension frauds.]

SEC. 4745. Any pledge, mortgage, sale, assignment, or transfer of any Any pledge or right, claim, or interest in any pension which has been, or may hereafter transfer of pension void. be, granted, shall be void and of no effect; and any person acting as attorney to receive and receipt for money for and in behalf of any person entitled to a pension shall, before receiving such money, take and subscribe an oath, to be filed with the pension-agent, and by him to be transmitted, with the vouchers now required by law, to the proper accounting officer of the Treasury, that he has no interest in such money by any pledge, mortgage, sale, assignment, or transfer, and that he does not know or believe that the same has been so disposed of to any person. SEC. 4746. Every person who knowingly or willfully in anywise profalse affidavit cures the making or presentation of any false or fraudulent affidavit and post-dating concerning any claim for pension, or payment thereof, or pertaining to vouchers, &c. any other matter within the jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Pensions, or who knowingly or willfully presents or causes to be presented at any pension-agency any power of attorney or other paper required as a voucher in drawing a pension, which paper bears a date subsequent to that on which it was actually signed or executed, shall be punished by a fine not exceeding five hundred dollars, or by imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years, or by both.

Penalty for

Pension not lia

SEC. 4747. No sum of money due, or to become due, to any pensioner, ble to attach shall be liable to attachment, levy, or seizure by or under any legal or ment, &c. equitable process whatever, whether the same remains with the Pension